A poker hand is usually based on five cards that the player possesses and these cards determine poker hand rankings. These are great to learn, even for those who don’t bet, because it’s fun to play games like knock poker. In this game, each player has five cards and draws from a discard pile or draw pile to try to create the best hand. When a player thinks he’s achieved that, he knocks, and person with the highest hand wins; no bets ever have to take place. The poker hand rankings from highest to lowest are the following: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card.

Royal and straight flush should be discussed together. Essentially, these cards are all of one suit (diamonds, hearts, aces, clubs) and are in numerical order. Getting a straight flush is rare but a royal flush is even less common and is the highest poker hand. In the royal flush, which is a straight flush, the player has the cards 10, J, Q, K, A, all in one suit.

Another difficult hand to get is four of kind. This is when a player collects the same card in each suit. The player could have four aces and another card, or four twos and another card.

Below four of a kind in poker hand rankings is the full house. A player has three matching cards and a set of two matching cards. A full house could be Q, Q, Q, 10,10, or 10,10, 7, 7,7.

The types of cards that make up the full house begin to matter because most poker hand rankings depend not only on type of hand but also highest card. In four of kind or a full house, if there are two in the same game, the person with the highest cards wins. In the above full house examples, the first set would be the winning hand if both hands were present in the same game. Similarly, a four of a kind with queens beats four of kind with twos.

Just below the full house is the flush, which is all five cards of the same suit. The straight is cards in consecutive order. This is different and lower in poker hand rankings than the straight flush because the cards don’t have to be of the same suit.

Three of a kind is next, and means three matching cards. Many people trying for a full house end up with three of a kind. Two pair is two pairs of matching cards, and again, this might be a common hand for those looking for a full house. One pair is simply two cards that match.

The last of the poker hand rankings is highest card. When no one else has a hand, this may win the game. There are some exceptions and some people play lowball poker. This means the person with the lowest numerical card would win the hand. Some unorthodox games add additional hands like skip straights, alternating even or odd cards that progress upward. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 3, 5, 7, 9, J are examples of this.